DC Fan Novel: The Tails Doll Curse
by SyahirSQRT2
Summary: Conan tells a story about how he and the gang faced death in the eyes when they confronted with the demonic doll from Sonic R.
1. First Incident

**DC Fan Novel: The Tails Doll Curse **– Chapter 1

_Conan tells a story about how he and the gang faced death in the eyes when they confronted with the demonic doll from Sonic R._

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><p><em>This is my first crossover fanfic. It's gonna be a long one, so I'll just wait for some reviews first before proceeding to the second chapter. (I'll continue even though I have no reviews, though.)<em>

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><p>"So? What's with the sleepy eyes that you got there, Edogawa-kun?" Haibara, who sits next to Conan in the class, asked him. Conan had been seen to be sleepy in the past few days, and his gang started to feel worried about it.<p>

"Nah, nothing. Just another case that uncle, Ran-neechan and I had to attend at night time," Conan smirks a bit, but still is drowsy.

"Well, what was it about?" Haibara asks. Somehow, she had been interested with Conan's cases more and more these days.

"Have you ever heard of the serial murder that happened in Netherlands that is related to Death Note?" Conan asks back.

"Yeah. The murderer left a note that wrote 'My name is Kira' next to the victim at every crime scene," Haibara tells what she knew about that case. "Let me guess. The same case happened here?"

"Bingo," Conan answers. "Luckily, the murderer had been caught and the case was closed."

"Lucky for you," she replies shortly. "This isn't the first case that is cartoon or anime-related, right?"

"Hmm?" Conan gives a confused look. As far as he could remember, that's the only case that is anime-related. What other case does?

"What? You seriously don't remember? Everyone else in our team remember it," she tries to remind him. "Remember? March 2010, serial murder, game-related, myth confirmed?"

"Oh, it's about the Tears Door, right?" Ayumi interrupts their conversation.

"No, it's not Tears Door. It's Tails Doll. The Tails Doll Case," Mitsuhiko corrects Ayumi's pronounciation.

"Man, you better not saying about that again. I can't sleep for three nights after that incident!" Genta tells the rest of them.

"Oh, the Tails Doll Case." Conan gains his memory back. "I'd rather call it the Tails Doll Curse, if you guys don't mind."

"Wow, a curse. You'd never told me about this," Kobayashi-sensei suddenly pops out from behind the gang. They all are shocked. "It's quite unbelievable. You usually doesn't believe in this paranormal and supernatural things. That really isn't you."

"I can't say anything about that, sensei. I had experienced that thing myself, along with the rest of the team," Conan says. From the moment where Mitsuhiko mentioned about the Tails Doll Case, his face started to look a _little_ bit frightened.

"Well, can you tell us about that?" The self-proclaimed leader of the Detective Boys asks him.

"_Us_?" Conan asks back.

"Yes! Everyone had gathered around you from the moment I came here, if you hadn't noticed yet." The teacher looks back towards the other childrens. "So?"

Conan sighs before replying; "Okay, I will." The class got a little bit noisy as the children starts to move closer towards Conan.

"It all started on February 26th, 2010, when suddenly the search about the Tails Doll curse boomed in Google and kids started to try it..."

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><p><em>February 26th, 2010<em>

"Hey, Conan! Have you heard about the Tails Doll Curse?" Ayumi asked Conan, who had been surfing the Net for some news.

"Hmm? What's that?" Conan asked back. He looked uninterested about this curse that the little girl had been talking about.

"Well, it is about an evil doll which is said to kill people who played the character in a game," Genta explained a bit about the Tails Doll to Conan.

"The game is Sonic R, released in 1997 for Sega Saturn. A year later, a version for PC running Windows 98 and above was released," Mitsuhiko explained more about the game. Being a know-it-all in science and technology, there's no wonder that he knew such things. "Tails Doll is an unlockable character in this game."

"And? Do you believe in such things?" Conan asked in a sarcastic tone.

"Of course!" They all answered. Conan sighed, expecting a 'hey, let's go and find out about this' from the rest of them. As a detective who had been involved in much things about the dead, he does not believe in ghosts and such things.

"Hey, why don't you try and debunk the myth?" Haibara, who had been hearing their conversation, suggested that to Conan.

"Nah, I have no time to play it. Plus, I'm no good in games, remember?" Conan answered. He _does_ suck in games. "Oh well, you guys can try it without me, right?"

"But it won't be fun without you," Ayumi said. Conan simply sighed.

_That night..._

Conan and his "family" were having dinner in Mouri's detective agency. Suddenly, the phone rung. Mouri stood up and picked up the phone, unlike his natural behaviour.

"Hello, Mouri's Detective Agency." That was another unusual behaviour. "Who's speaking?"

"Mouri, it's me, Inspector Megure. I need you to come to a crime scene, if you're not busy."

"Well, that wouldn't be a problem. But, what's the case this time?"

"A 12-year-old boy was found dead in the middle of the living room. He's murdered, based on the study that we had conducted," Megure explained.

After a few minutes of talking, Mouri ended with "Okay, I'll be there as soon as I can" and hung up. They all soon headed to the crime scene.

"What is it this time?" Conan asked in the taxi.

"What else? Another murder, of course," Mouri answered.

"Who's murdered? How did it happened?"

"A boy. He's killed in his living room. The police had confirmed that he's murdered by someone, but they're unsure who is it."

"And? What else?"

"He might be playing a video game at the time of crime."

"What kind of video game?"

"COULD YOU STOP ASKING ME QUESTIONS?" Mouri shouted angrily. He tried to be calm for the first few questions, but why should he tell everything to an 8-year-old boy? Conan simply rests his back on the back seat.

At the crime scene, Conan started to look around the place in search of any evidence and asked the police officers about the crime, just like what he usually do. When he walked to the front of the TV screen, he tried to recognize the type of game played by the boy.

"Sir, have you recognized the type of game that the victim played?" Conan asked a police officer.

"No, not yet," the police officer answered shortly. "Hey, why don't you go and identify the type of game. Maybe it'll help in this investigation."

"I'll do my best," Conan answered happily before taking out a handkerchief to touch the controller.

He first looked at the screen. He noticed that the boy had managed to get the first place in the game. He then looked at the character he's playing. It's a two-tailed floating fox with a gem hanging on top of his head.

'Let's see the list of characters in this game,' Conan thought while opening the characters list screen to select a sprite to be used in the game.

"Oh, here it is. Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy, Robotnik, Metal Sonic, Metal Knuckles, Super Sonic, EggRobo... Wow, he'd unlocked all the characters," he said while looking at the list of characters. Suddenly, a name caught his interest.

"Tails Doll," he blurted. Then, he remembered what his friends said about the character.

Suddenly, he felt a blast of pain from the top of his head. He knew who did that without the need to look back.

"What are you doing? Can't you just stay aside and not disturb the investigation?" Mouri asked angrily from behind. See why he doesn't need to look back?

"But, but... one officer right there asked me to identify this game. So I..." Conan explained.

The police officer just now came and explained to Mouri about that. Then, Mouri asked back; "So, what game is it?"

"It's Sonic R, released in 1997 by Sega," Conan answered in pain.

"Okay, that might help in this investigation. Now, step aside," Mouri instructed him to go away from the crime scene. Outside the living room, Conan started searching about the game in the Internet.

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><p><em>That's all for the first chapter, everybody! I think I shouldn't write this in the middle of the night...<em>

_Oh well, there's more to come! Please review!_


	2. Logically Impossible

**DC Fan Novel: The Tails Doll Curse **– Chapter 2

_Conan and his gang are uncovering the Tails Doll Curse_

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><p><em>Well, what do we got here? A second chapter of DC Fan Novel. Hmm...<em>

_Okay, this is the second chapter that I'd tried as hard as possible to make it more interesting to read. Hope you'd like it._

_(I wonder, what kept me moving?)_

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><p>"Ooh, that had already sounds interesting! Would you mind to continue?" Kobayashi-sensei, who had gave full attention to what this bespectacled 8-year-old boy was telling, asks for more details.<p>

"Yeah, I _am _continuing," Conan replied. "It's just a brief pause."

"No, it's not. It's a full minute of stop," Haibara objects what Conan said earlier.

He sighed before saying; "Okay, moving on..."

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><p><em>February 27th, 2010<em>

_10:15 am_

"Hey, Kudo. What's with the case yesterday?" Haibara asked Conan, who had been reading a certain book. Possibly a mystery novel, because an encyclopedia is too random for him.

"Well, it's a murder case. A 12-year-old kid got stabbed and was found... wait, how did you know about this?" Conan asked back. Haibara lifted a newspaper with an article about the murder case, yesterday.

"If you have that article, why should you ask me?" Conan sarcastically asked.

"Because..." Haibara said while placing the newspaper on the table and highlighted the word _video game_, _murdered_ and _leaved no evidence, not even footprints_. "That's why."

"Yes, a serial murder. I had forseen it," Conan muttered while looking back towards his book.

"No, that's not what I meant," Haibara rejected Conan's statement.

"What? It's obvious, right? This murderer will only kill kids, while they're playing video games," Conan explained more about his idea just now.

"I thought you're a smart guy, but turns out that you're not." Conan focused his attention on Haibara. "Think! How can a murderer knows when a certain kid plays a video game? And, based on the picture taken right here..." Haibara pointed to a picture in the newspaper that shows the TV screen with the video game before continued, "this kid got murdered as soon as the game finished. How could anyone possibly knows the exact time that the kid finishes the game? And, would anyone broke a sweat just to find a kid who had a video game and is currently playing it so that the kid can be killed?"

Conan started to re-think what he had said just now. Haibara was right, what are the chances that a kid will be killed as soon as the game finishes? And, how many murderer do you know that will look at every house just to find a kid who is playing a video game?

"Maybe," Conan started unconfidently, "maybe the murderer doesn't have to wait until the game finishes. Maybe the guy will just... kill at any moment."

"Maybe," Haibara responded, with a grin in her face (because this is the first time that she actually see the renowned detective lacks his confidence). "But you still can't explain about the second problem; would a murderer look for a kid who plays video game just to kill that kid? He could've killed any kid. Plus, if you're saying that it's that murderer who switched on the video game, you can't explain how he manages to finish the game... without cheats."

At this moment, Conan frowned a bit. "Failure is always an option" is Adam Savage's most well-known quote (excluding "Am I missing an eyebrow"), but that won't work for Conan. He sighed, before continuing his reading.

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><p><em>9:30 pm<em>

"Another case, dad?" Ran asked her dad, who had been preparing himself for some time.

"Yes," Mouri replied shortly.

"Is it the same as yesterday?" Conan asked him.

"Yes," Mouri replied shortly, again.

"Can we come with you?" Conan requested. He wanted to see the crime scene this time, and wished that he'll find some more evidence that'll back up his idea that the murderer _does_ murder anyone.

"NO!" Mouri replied sh... damn, I have to stop using this sentence over and over again.

"Please..." Conan begged with his most child-like voice. (OUR PROTAGONIST, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! A high-school kid who had been shrunked and now bugs other people's mind with his childish act!)

"NO! I don't want you to mess up in the crime scene again!" Mouri exclaimed before walking out the door in anger.

After the sound of the engine of the taxi disappeared, Ran tried to calm Conan. "It's okay, Conan. You can go ne..." She stopped in the middle of her sentence when she found out that Conan was gone. Where did he go?

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><p>On the streets of Beika city, Conan was zooming with his turbo-charged skateboard, version two-point-naught.<p>

"Hah! I told you, professor! Placing capacitors on this skateboard to store energy during the day _is_ useful!" He muttered to himself proudly.

On his glasses, was a radar that tracked Mouri's movement across the city. He had predicted that there will be a case that night, so he placed a tracker on Mouri's jacket to track wherever he go. This also allowed him to be further from Mouri's cab.

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><p><em>9:50 pm<em>

3 minutes after Mouri arrived, Conan reached the crime scene.

"Phew, that was a hell of a ride!" Conan said after getting off the skateboard. Agasa had managed to power up the skateboard, so that it's speed, even with 5 passengers onboard, can reach 70 kilometres per hour. So what's the speed with only one passenger? You decide.

Conan tried to look for a safe spot to keep his skateboard. Then, he climbed a window that led to a bedroom. He can't go with the front door, or he'll be found.

There are two doors that led to the outside of the room. Conan opened one. It was a bathroom. He closed the door. He opened another one. It was a kitchen.

"How should I get out from here?" Conan breathed. He looked inside the bathroom, once again. There's a door inside the bathroom. He opened it slowly. It led to the living room.

"Who on earth build this house?" He sarcastically asked to himself. He poked his head slightly outside, to take a look at the living room. There's no one there, except the body on the ground. "Great," he cheered.

He walked outside, towards the dead body. Little does he knew that every single police officers – including Megure and Mouri - were watching his every move.

"Ehem," all the adults made the clear-your-throat sound. Conan freezed on the spot and turned his head around, slowly. He then broke the fourth wall by looking towards the camera and said; "I'm so screwed."

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><p>"HOW DID YOU GET HERE?" Mouri angrily asked Conan. He was now officially an unwelcomed guest.<p>

"I... I took a taxi here," Conan lied, as usual. (Our protagonist, ladies and gentlemen!)

"So, how did you know this place?" Mouri asked again, but in a _slightly_ lower tone.

"I... was... right behind you. About 10 metres... apart." Conan looked downwards to act like a guilty child.

"But on the way here, I don't see any cars behind me!" Mouri exclaimed.

"Calm down, calm down Mouri. Just make sure that he didn't interrupt the investigation," Megure tried to calm Mouri. "Now, let's get back to the case."

Conan sat on a couch that faced directly towards the corpse and the TV screen. He wanted to examine the corpse, but he couldn't go anywhere, or he'll face the "Mouri punishment".

He could made an assumption. Based on the colour of the corpse, he might be dead for approximately one or two hours. There's the stab wound, as usual, but not the weapon. He turned around just to see if any police officers had taken the weapon. But none of them did.

He turned his attention towards the TV set. As usual, the screen displayed a video game. But what caught Conan's attention was that the game displayed on the screen was Sonic R, in it's final round, with the character Tails Doll – the character chosen by the player – came in the first place.

'Coincidence?' Conan's mind thought for a second. But then, he remembered what Haibara said earlier in the day:

"_...this kid got murdered as soon as the game finished. How could anyone possibly knows the exact time that the kid finishes the game?"_

He started to think again. He now excludes the possibility that the murder was carried out by a stranger. It must be an inside job. But, if this was an inside job, how did the crime that happened at two different places have an extremely similar conditions? Did both the murderers planned to kill the kids at that certain time?

"No, this can't be true. These murders could be done by _one outsider _because of it's staggering similarities that could make it a serial murder, but it could also be done by _two insider _because of it's perfect timing," Conan explained to himself. "I'm also confused by the lack of evidence in the first crime scene. There wasn't a knife, a chisel, a hammer, not even footprints and blood drops except near the body. Nothing. This started to look like an _impossible murder_, as if someone who had the ability to float in the air and disappears, did this."

Suddenly, he turned his gaze towards the screen. He looked carefully at the Tails Doll character.

"That character floats... in mid-air," Conan monologued. He started to think that the murders were done by...

"No! No, no, no, no, no! How can something from a TV set emerges out from the screen? It's impossible!" Conan woke himself from his thought. His logic-driven mind said that it's impossible, so it is impossible.

But still, he took out his phone and googled "Tails Doll". He's lucky that he knew English.

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><p><em>The second chapter is done! I'm feeling very proud about it, because I could place logic inside this chapter! Hooray, human brain!<em>

_Anyway, if anyone ask me why did I use the "our protagonist" thing, I don't really know why. It suddenly popped up in my mind and I use it. The phrase came from LittleKuriboh / CardGamesFTW in Youtube who is known for his Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series. Adam Savage is the co-host of Mythbusters, a reality documentary show, and that is one of his catchphrases._

_Till then, I'm waiting for any review from anybody. Perhaps I could get one from the Tails Doll. Who knows?_


	3. The Blurred Red Line

**DC Fan Novel: The Tails Doll Curse **– Chapter 3

_Conan and his gang are uncovering the Tails Doll Curse_

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><p><em>So, here it is. The third chapter of the DC fan novel. It took me so long to upload this, because of the homeworks that my teachers gave me. Well, I'm the one who delayed those work, so I had to complete all of the work in the eleventh hour. Seriously, you don't want me to list those homeworks one by one.<em>

_And, someone had been joking with me in the comments section. That anonymous person who used the name "The Doll" had gave me some comments. Thank you, "The Doll". You made my day._

_Now, are you going to keep on reading this, or you're going to skip this part and read the story?_

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><p>"Wow, I'm pretty sure that I'd took quite a long time story-telling," Conan said when he finally noticed about the time flow.<p>

"Well, we have approximately 2 hours left. There's a lot of teachers that didn't come to school today," one of the kids explained.

"Okay then. The next part of my story happened mostly at the school. Should I continue, or do you want me to skip this part?" Conan asked the rest of them.

"Just continue."

"As you guys wish. The rest of the week was filled with more and more murder cases, and it seemed like it would never end. What's worse was that every single case happened at midnight or near midnight..."

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><p><em>March 5th, 2010<em>

_9:50 am_

"And that's how you solve this problem. Do you understand?" Teacher Kobayashi asked the class to make sure that they understood the stuff that she had been teaching. However, none of them did.

She let out a big sigh, because that was the third time she tried to explain the solution for the simple mathematical problem that she wrote on the whiteboard. It wasn't that hard; the question was "If a bar of chocolate weighs 30g, how many bars of chocolate can a box with the dimension of 1m x 1m x 1m contain?". It's not that hard... right?

As she gazed her eyes at the entire class, suddenly she saw Conan sleeping at his place. Now, that was unusual.

The teacher's soul was in an inferno. If she wasn't mistaken, this had been the 5th time that this happened. What's wrong with that bespectacled boy?

"Haibara, wake him up," Kobayashi-sensei ordered. She doesn't want her "internal combustion" to cause the others... "combust simultaneously".

Haibara woke Conan up. He lifted his head off the table. He was dizzy. It's not common for a normal 7-year-old to go to bed at 3 or 4 a.m.. Well, except if you're Conan Edogawa, of course. He did go to bed at that time, last night.

"What is wrong with you?" Haibara questioned. Even she was concerned about him. "Is the serial murder case still running?"

"Yeah, don't you read the newspaper? Last night was the... I don't know, the 7th case? Maybe I should reconsider about following Mouri everywhere he went." Conan let out a sigh. He's really tired.

"I can't believe that you haven't solved this yet. I mean, come on..." Haibara leaned close to Conan's ear, then whispered; "...you're the greatest detective in the history of Japan. I mean, until you're shrunk, of course."

"I can't believe that I said this, but maybe this case was, and is, way too hard. Because, it could be done by the same person. In the same time, it could've been done by different individuals. It's not like anything that I'd ever encountered before." Conan shrugged at the end of his line.

Some moment of silence between both of them.

"I need to go and talk to sensei," Conan breathed.

"About what?" Haibara asked. It's not normal that Conan go to her and ask about something.

"The question on the blackboard. If the only information given is the chocolate's mass, how can you figure out the number of chocolate that can be fitted into the box? You need the volume of that thing."

"Ohh." Haibara smirked a little, realizing how the shrunken detective next to him could solve everything.

Well, except the game murder case.

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><p><em>March 6th, 2010<em>

_1:13 am_

"I'm really, really annoyed this time," Kogoro Mouri complained to himself.

"If it's because the police officers asked me and Ran-neechan to come too, don't blame us," Conan said.

"No, you guys aren't annoying enough," Kogoro declined Conan's statement.

"So what is it that made you annoyed?"

"Oh, it's just... WHO ON EARTH COMMITS MURDER AT 1:00 AM?" Kogoro exclaimed. He's really annoyed by the fact that every single case that was related to the "game murder case" happened at between 11:30 p.m to 2 a.m the next day.

"Well, If I am the murderer, I will do my crime at this time," Ran gave her opinion. "You'd have enough time to run away without anyone noticing."

Kogoro simply sighed.

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><p><em>1:25 am<em>

"Oh, there you are Mouri! We're really waiting for you!" Inspector Megure greeted Kogoro from the front door.

"Hey, it looks like there aren't many officers left. Why are you calling me, actually?" Kogoro asked when he noticed that there were only four or five police officers left.

"Actually, we need you to look at this CCTV recording. It might lead us to our first milestone in this investigation," Megure explained.

"Great. Do we have the suspect on tape?" Kogoro asked excitedly. He realized that if the person had been caught on tape, it might close the case in no time.

"Yes and no. Yes, because the murder was recorded on tape, but no because the murderer doesn't look much like a human." That broke Mouri's heart a bit.

"Okay. Let's watch the recording." In disappointment, Mouri walked with the rest of the police officers to the CCTV room in the house.

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><p>"Fast forward to 12:45."<p>

All of them who were in the house watched and examined the video carefully. They didn't want any crucial piece of evidence to be missed.

"Okay, here it is."

The video played. First, it showed the girl in front of the TV screen. She's playing the game that every other murdered children played. Sonic R.

And, she's playing it in the dark.

The iconic "Can You Feel The Sunshine" song was heard through the speaker of the computer. It is the theme song for the level "Resort Island" in that game.

A few minutes later, the girl was seen walking away from the TV and into the bathroom. A few seconds later, she was seen running away from the bathroom and quickly picked up a bat.

"Go away! Go! Go! AHHHHH!"

That was the last sound that she made. At that time, she's outside any camera frames.

"Wait, didn't you just told me that you got the murderer on tape? Where is him?" Kogoro asked.

"Just wait," Megure replied.

A few seconds later, a blurred streak of light passed along the path between the murdered girl and the bathroom. The light only appeared in about 10 frames. The video was about 30 frames per second, so...

"Based on the calculation that we just did, the distance between the point where the girl was killed and the bathroom was 10 metres. The murderer appeared in 6 out of 30 frames in this video that made up a second. So, he moved at a speed of 10 metres in a fifth of a second," Megure explained his team's findings.

"That is equivalent to 50 metres per second, 3 kilometres per minute, or 180 kilometres per hour," Conan did the maths.

"What? Is there any human that could move that fast? That speed is like... blink and you'll miss him!" Kogoro asked in frustration. Frustrated by the fact that the case needed to be investigated from square one after this discovery.

"Excuse me, inspector. I'm sure that there is a way to find out who was this guy," Conan said.

"Really? How is it?" Megure asked. His team really need something to figure out who was the murderer.

"Give me a copy of the original recording, and I'll tell you who was the one that is responsible for all these murders."

"Okay then." Megure asked one of the police officers to copy the file that Conan asked. Megure don't know how to use a computer, and this computer is a 95. Even worse.

"Thanks," Conan said to the officer. "I'll promise that I'll give you the murderer in a few days."

"We count on you, Conan."

After a few hours, Kogoro and the rest of them left the crime scene. Conan was very confident that the blurred image can be "un-blurred" so that the murderer's face can be seen, at last. And he knew who could do such a job.

Want to know who? Geez, be patient. I'll tell you in the next chapter. For now, why don't you try to solve the question that was given in the earlier part?

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><p><em>At last, Chapter 3's up!<em>

_The next update might be a little bit slow because I have to undergo the Year-End Test at school in this week and the incoming week. While you're waiting, why don't you solve the question above? I'll give you the answer in the next chapter._


	4. Photoshop Or What

**DC Fan Novel: The Tails Doll Curse** – Chapter 4

_Conan and his gang are uncovering the Tails Doll Curse._

_Another chapter's up! Now, just like what I told you guys in the last chapter, I'll give you the answer for the question in the last chapter. What's the answer? Geez, why don't you read this chapter first?_

"So, I took that copy of the video and gave it to Professor Agasa. He could make any blurred picture clear."

Conan and the rest of the class were still in their "storytelling session". The rest of the class listened to him really well, though. They knew that anything that came out from his mouth were interesting, and they knew that anything that could actually scare the crap out of Conan were very, very interesting.

"How could he do that?" One kid asked.

"Did he use Photoshop?" Another random kid asked.

"Well, no. Personally, even I don't know what kind of software that he used. Maybe he developed it himself," Conan replied.

"If he sells the thing, he must be rich!" One girl exclaimed.

"You're right. But, the professor… he's not that… what should I say, bright? He's not that bright to come out with that idea." The whole class chuckled a bit after hearing this statement.

"Anyway, the copy of the video safely reached his hand, and so…"

_March 6__th__, 2010_

_9:30 am_

"Hey, are you sure that he could do it?" Mouri asked Conan just when he's about to walk out of the house and head towards Agasa's house.

"Yes, I'm 100% sure. He did it before, and he definitely could do it now. Remember the last time, when he was called to make a guest appearance on-stage to solve the photographer case?" Conan strengthened his opinion about Agasa's capability.

"Huh? When was that?" Mouri was confused.

"What? You don't remember? It's when you were called as a guest to make a live appearance in the photographer's TV show. You're the…" Conan stopped his sentence when he remembered that during the broadcast, Mouri was sleeping throughout the show. Conan dubbed his voice so that he could solve the case regarding the burned apartment.

Mouri had his eyes set on the boy. He's looking quite suspiciously.

"Oh well, I gotta leave now. See ya!" Conan quickly ran downstairs, grabbed his skateboard, and left the house as fast as possible. To be more precise, he left the house at the speed of about 100 kilometres per hour.

"_Damn! I should've watched what I'm saying. The secret had almost been revealed!_" Conan thought to himself. That was one of Conan's "how can I be so stupid?" moment.

_9:40 am_

Knock, knock.

The door was knocked by Conan. He really wanted to do this fast. He wanted to uncover the identity of the murderer.

Knock, knock, knock.

More knocks. But still, no one was answering. Conan let out a sigh and leaned against the wall. He started thinking about the case.

"_It's really weird. Once again, the murderer committed his crime in the exact same way. He just kills those who play the Sonic R game. But why? That would just make his job harder. If I were the murderer, I'll just kill anyone. Plus, there's absolutely nothing that could relate the kids who were murdered._" The thought revolved around Conan's mind just like the planet Mercury revolves around the Sun.

"_And one more thing…_" He grabbed the CD in which the recording was stored and stared towards it. "_This video showed that the murderer had a red light with him. Was that really him? Or was it just some random insect that flew in front of the camera just when the crime was committed? Logically, no one would ever take the risk of showing himself in front of the camera. He'll make himself as unseen as possible. So, what's with the red light? Was it used to illuminate the dark? He could've use a white light instead. Red light isn't that luminous; that's why it was used frequently by astronomers to gaze the stars._"

He kept on thinking about the case, just when Agasa and Haibara walked into the yard with some groceries. They saw Conan at the door.

"Hey, Shinichi. What are you doing?" Agasa asked.

Conan was stunned by that call. He looked up to see the fat professor standing in front of him.

"Oh, hey. I was waiting for you to come home," Conan explained.

"What for?" Haibara asked him. "Is it something about the case that you and your family had been investigating recently?"

"Yeah, something about… wait a minute. They're not my family," Conan denied part of Haibara's statement.

"Technically, they're your family," Haibara said. She rejected Conan's reality and substituted her own.

"Whatever. So, can I come in?" Conan, to prevent arguing with Haibara anymore, asked the professor.

"Of course. I would love to help you with your case."

All of them stepped into the house.

"I'll make some breakfast. You guys could go into the computer room in the basement for a while. But don't break my stuff," Haibara told them.

"Geez, Haibara. Who do you think we are? A bunch of 5-year-olds?" Conan muttered. He's really not that satisfied with the way she behaved that day.

Haibara didn't say a word. She just made her way towards the kitchen. Conan and Agasa walked downstairs towards Haibara's sacred realm, a.k.a. the basement.

"So, you both ran out of stuff to eat today?" Conan asked Agasa while they're walking downstairs.

"Yeah," Agasa responded shortly.

They made their way into the basement. Agasa booted up the computer, and the Windows XP boot screen appeared on the monitor screen.

"What do you want me to do?" Agasa asked Conan.

"Do you still have the picture editing software of yours in this computer?" Conan asked back.

"Yes, I do."

"Great. I need your help to make this image in this video clearer. Not the whole video, but just one frame."

"That's simple. What will that reveal?"

"Possibly the identity of the murderer, or a new species of insect. Who knows?" Conan smirked at the end of his sentence. He really wished that the red light really was the murderer. If it was, then the whole investigation could be ended in a few days.

After Agasa logged in into his account, he inserted the CD into the CD drive. A few seconds after, Windows Explorer popped out and the content of the CD was revealed.

"Okay. Open that video file and fast forward to the 20th minute, if I'm not mistaken," Conan gave Agasa the instructions. Agasa did just that.

20 minutes into the recording, and the girl was seen cheering. This left both of the males confused.

"What made her so happy?" Conan asked to himself.

"_At last, I finished this game with only the Tails Doll! Woohoo!_" The girl's cheers were heard through the speaker. "_I'll play this once again!_"

"Okay, so she's happy because she won the game with the so-called Tails Doll. But, what's with that character, anyway?" Agasa asked Conan.

"Well, from what I know, the Tails Doll is the slowest character in the game. On the other hand, he could float on air. That gave the character some advantages; because the character could float, he could move over water and obstacles, and take a shortcut, thus allowing him to win easier despite his low speed," Conan explained.

They both continued to watch the video. At the 23rd minute, the part that Conan saw at the crime scene played. The girl walked towards the bathroom, ran out screaming, took a baseball bat, and was murdered.

A few seconds later, the red light appeared in a flash.

"Here's the part, professor. Could you play this part frame by frame?" Conan requested.

"You bet," Agasa said confidently. After a few mouse clicks, the video played at a rate of 2 frames per second.

"Okay, professor. I want you to pause about… here. Okay, now take a screen clipping and sharpen that image," Conan instructed.

After pressing the "PrtSc" button on his keyboard, he launched his application and pasted the image on the canvas.

"Great. Now, can you make this part clear?" Conan asked while pointing towards the red light on the screen.

"Hmm… well, I'll try," the professor responded.

The professor started his work. First, he cropped the image so that only the part with the red light and some part in the surrounding were seen. Then, he uses the "Detect Edge" tool that he created to detect the edge of the object with the red light. Then, he deleted the surrounding area so that the image resembled a "something". Then, he increased the brightness of the image. Then, he used a tool that detects the concentration of color in the certain area. Then, he right-clicked the image and select the option "Auto-color…". A dialog box appeared. He selected the radio option "Highest concentrated color" in the section "Color the image with the…". He then set the area of which the highest concentrated color will be applied. He lowered the brightness of the image, sharpened the image, reduced the intensity of the red light, and there you have it. The image of the murderer was on the screen. But, who was the murderer?

"No way," Conan muttered in disbelief.

"Yes, I know. I'm awesome," Agasa praised himself because he thought that Conan was marveled with his skills.

"No, it's not you. That image!" Conan exclaimed. He still can't believe what he just saw.

"What's with that image?" Agasa asked in confusion.

"Could I have this seat for a while, professor?" Conan asked seriously.

"Okay." Agasa, in confusion, stood up and let Conan took the seat. Conan quickly minimized all windows and launched Google Chrome. In almost a blink of an eye, he typed the Google address with the extension "/imghp?hl=en&tab=wi". Out came the "Google Images" page. He quickly typed in the query and pressed Enter.

About 636,000 images of the Tails Doll appeared in about 13 milliseconds.

Conan tiled the Google Chrome window and Agasa's application window side-by-side. He compared the image that was really the Tails Doll just like how it appeared in the video game, and the image that Agasa managed to clarify. There's a shocking similarity between both of the images.

Even Agasa was shocked too.

"Is that the…" Agasa muttered.

"I-I-I don't know. There's no way that something could pop out of a video game and kill someone, right?" Conan said.

"Y-yeah," Agasa responded.

"Oh yes, it could."

A voice said behind them. Both of them were shocked by that voice. They turned around to see Haibara standing behind them.

"What did you guys find out?" Haibara asked. She's confused by how both of them looked for the first few seconds.

"HAIBARA! CAN'T YOU JUST KNOCK THE DOOR FIRST?" Conan yelled angrily to Haibara. Yeah, with the discovery of something that was out of this world, he's really pissed.

"Why should I? This is _my _sacred realm, after all," Haibara replied. She smirked, because she knew that they had found something truly amazing. "Could you give me some space, please?"

Both of them moved to the side and let Haibara do the observation. After a while, Haibara said;

"Yes, there _is _a way to make something to pop out from thin air. But, it's still in a beta stage."

"Beta stage? What do you mean?" Conan asked.

"Well…" Haibara said.

_I said "Let there be a cliffhanger," and there was a cliffhanger._

_Oh yeah, baby! Chapter 4's up!_

_This is the longest chapter if I'm not mistaken. I'm really satisfied with this. For me, it's very neat and well-written._

_And, the answer for the last question is: __**44,167**__. The average density of chocolate is 1,325 kilograms per cubic metre. Divide the number with 30 grams, and you'll get the number of chocolates that could be fit into the 1 cubic metre box._

_Stay tuned for the next chapter!_


End file.
